McCain-care leaves much to be desired
By Steve Benen Tuesday Apr 29, 2008 7:30amAfter John McCain unveiled more details on his healthcare plan yesterday in Tampa, the Politico ran this headline: “McCain moves to middle on health care.” Given that any policy proposal aiming for the “middle” is perceived as moderate and sensible, the spin on McCain’s plan was obviously positive.
But spin aside, the policy itself leaves much to be desired.
Senator John McCain detailed his plan to solve the nation’s health care crisis in a speech here Tuesday, calling for the federal government to give some money to states to help them cover people with illnesses who have been denied health insurance.
Mr. McCain’s health care plan would shift the emphasis from insurance provided by employers to insurance bought by individuals, to foster competition and drive down prices. To do so he is calling for eliminating the tax breaks that currently encourage employers to provide health insurance for their workers, and replacing them with $5,000 tax credits for families to buy their own insurance.
His proposal to move away from employer-based coverage was similar to one that President Bush pushed for last year, to little effect. And his call for expanding coverage through market-based competition is in stark contrast to the Democrats’ proposals to move toward universal health care coverage, with government subsidies to help lower-income people afford their premiums.
The good news is, the contrast between McCain’s approach and the Democrats’ approach couldn’t be greater. For voters concerned about healthcare, there’s a clear and distinct choice.
The bad news is, McCain’s plan is pretty awful, and probably won’t receive much in the way of scrutiny.
About a week ago, McCain, sensitive to criticism he’s received from Elizabeth Edwards (among others), told George Stephanopoulos, “We’re not leaving anybody behind.”
The problem, not surprisingly, is that he’s leaving all kinds of people behind. TNR’s Jonathan Cohn took a close look at McCain’s proposal and concluded, “His great new plan isn’t new or great. And it still wouldn’t help Elizabeth Edwards get decent insurance.” After reviewing McCain’s patchwork solution for people who can’t get insurance due to pre-existing conditions, Cohn added that McCain’s approach is “absolutely preposterous.”
Just to add one thing to Cohn’s analysis, there’s also the not-inconsequential matter of affordability. McCain wants to discourage employers from offering employees healthcare, and replace subsidies with $5,000 tax credits. In turn, Americans could go and get their own insurance, detached from their job. (That is, unless you’ve ever been sick, and private insurers don’t want you.)
What McCain didn’t mention is that “average cost of an employer-funded insurance plan is $12,106 for a family, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy group. Paul B. Ginsburg, the president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research organization financed by foundations and government agencies, said, ‘For a lot of people, the tax credits he’s talking about would not be enough to afford coverage.’”
Hilzoy summarized the situation nicely:
So, in a nutshell: McCain plans to eliminate tax breaks for employers who offer health insurance. In exchange, he will offer employees less than half the cost of the plans they now have. If their employers eliminate care, they will have to swallow the difference. But those employees are the lucky ones. They will only have to cough up $7,000 or so. People with preexisting conditions or serious health risks will have to pay $100,000 as a down payment, and $14,000 a year thereafter.
But hey: at least he’s going to cut the gas tax! […]
It’s easy to make health policy when you don’t allow little things like facts to constrain you: when you can wish away chronic diseases, pretend that corporations are completely unresponsive to changes in the tax structure, and describe programs that leave people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care costs as “making sure that they get the high-quality coverage they need.” It’s just not particularly helpful. Plus, it would be even better with ponies.
As McCain “moved to the middle” of the road on healthcare? Only if the “middle” is the area in which bad policy proposals get run over.
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Great plan for the average person--those who still have employer provided health insurance will now lose it and have to pay for it out of their own pockets.
It is a great plan for McVeigh's lobbyist friends.
Here's my bold prediction:
The right-to-lifers, when they start seeing the national medicare/medicade bills spiking because of the rise in elderly Americans will start clamoring for euthanasia
McCain's half measures will never suffice.
It's about time the Dems simply announce a federal take-over of the health industry.
I remember thinking when I saw those numbers, "Who the hell thinks a family can get health insurance for 5 grand a year? So how exactly is a 5,000 dollar credit going to help them?"
So, the Feds give the States some money to take care of the uninsurable (sick people with pre-existing conditions, for example), which removes them from the risk pool for the private Insurers. Then, the Feds give people some tax credits to go "shopping" for insurance if they are not covered by an employee plan. What a giant lollipop this is (for the Insurance companies).
The insurance companies get everything they want: They don't need to cover sick people, the self-employed receive help from the govt to buy their products, and those who have employer health care keep paying through the nose, too. The unemployed and poor remain totally screwed, of course... to keep the Republican base happy.
This is not a "middle of the road" approach... it's a disgraceful sell-out to the HMO industry.
Well I guess I can start the day with a rant!
There is NO possible fix to healthcare in the U.S. until the blatant profiteering and outrageous pricing are outlawed. The whole system is a scam, with the complicity of providers, suppliers and insurance companies. It has evolved into the most inefficient and callous system imaginable.
When I try to think what I would do to fix it, I come up blank. The only option I see would be to start from scratch - obviously not possible.
My family has gone through phases of having or not-having insurance coverage and it seems we are most definitely better off without it. The cost of premiums, co-payments, deductibles etc far surpasses the amount of "negotiated" settlements that you could make post-treatment. FYI, if you've never tried it - the prices are jacked up so high to cover the inefficiency in the system that you can normally get at least a 50% discount.
Simply mentioning that poor, sick people may need some assistance is suicidal for a GOP nominee.
Looks like McSame's gonna have to make another appearance with some agent of intolerance in order to get back in good standings (sort of) with the knuckledraggers.
All I can say about McPains plan is HA HA HA HA.
John ... get screwed.
It's still a big "fuck you" to the poor. We all should get free Congressman insurance, or nobody should get free insurance, especially Congressmen.
This is the typical, out-of-touch nonsense that McCain provides. If a family is unable to afford health insurance today, a tax-credit won't solve that problem in the least. Tax-credits are for businesses who have the neccesary cash flow, not families who don't. The notion that a family who currently can't afford health insurance can suddenly afford it based on a tax-credit, which they will recieve that following April is nothing short of idiotic.
If you can't afford something, a tax-credit does not make something magically affordable. And to think, this man refers to others as elitist.
YourMom @ 5:
You're right.
The only time I was self insured, was through a Cobra plan. It cost $6,000 / year, just for me. that was in 2002. As soon as the time ran out, the Blue Cross dumped me, and refused to offer alternatives. Obviously they weren't making enough profit off of me. Maybe if I offered them $20,000 year?
I don't see how McCain's plan is even benefits the insurers. If businesses are discouraged from buying insurance and single payers can't afford it, where will the insurer's get their money from?
Will insurance coverage be mandated by law, like auto insurance?
Will policies be rewritten so that insurance corporations no longer have to pay claims.
Will they collect payments and never have to pay for medical care?
Today's must-read on John McCain:
Things you don't know about him because he
doesn't care to talk about them; but should.
Getting to Know John McCain
by Karl Rove
April 30, 2008
It came to me while I was having dinner with Doris Day. No, not that Doris Day. The Doris Day who is married to Col. Bud Day, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton.
As we ate near the Days' home in Florida recently, I heard things about Sen. McCain that were deeply moving and politically troubling. Moving because they told me things about him the American people need to know. And troubling because it is clear that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history....
If McCentury-to-10000-years has his way, NONE of us will need private insurance.
We're all either gonna be buried at Arlington or we'll all be (kinda) covered by the VA.
Reverand Wright is gone, the media can calm down, nothing will bother the state of affairs that comforts them and their corporate masters.
After buying Stephen Colbert’s book, first in 10 years, out of sheer curiosity and to kill time, I guess it’s time to buy another one, Wright’s that is. One has to be totally closed minded if he or she didn’t like Wright’s performance and the way he described the difference between different and deficient.
Whether there was someone in the middle as he was speaking to the audience, the image of Obama that hasn’t had the fortunes in life that he in fact had and is just a regular junkie now, the image of himself, or the image of countless black boys and girls who Wright has seen throughout his life in Africa and America, those who were dying because of AIDS or expensive meds, or those who were uneducated yet yearning for education, because, despite what the MSM tells us, the world is indeed complex hence interesting.
You have to give credit to Obama. He knows that the media may be afraid. He knows that they were afraid so they let the Iraq war happen. And what could have been a better world for an average American without the trillions in debt, skyrocketing oil prices, 4 thousand dead American soldiers and tens of thousands of injured, unfunded social programs, education, infrastructure and so on, the mainstream media single-handedly ruined.
A politician who cares about the people. That’s who Obama must be, otherwise, his supporters would long be gone cheering for Clinton and McCain and would spend the money that they give away to Obama on better things than politics. Politics that help people. What a concept.
What do you do? Do you move forward with the concept or scare the f*ck out of the media – the folks who, if scared, do bad things to you and others like the whole Iraq thing.
You do the right thing. You think about the people, the future and don’t let your friend and pastor scare anyone.
If that’s what happen, there indeed may be hope. The book should be interesting. Hopefully, Wright knows what he cannot do now if he truly believes that Obama can deliver. Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter and other cun*s can f**k off now because fear mongering and scare tactics in this particular case have been officially “nullified”.
McCain's plan would continue to give too much power to INSURANCE companies.
I don't want some profit-driven functionary deciding life and death issues for me or for my doctor.
McCain is incredibly cavalier about life and death issues at home (continue to let the insurance companies rule) and abroad (100 more years in Iraq).
He does not deserve to be our next President.
People will never hear the many ridiculous statements or terrible backward ideas of McSame because of the Right Wing-Nut owned media outlets.
Off topic - sorry - but could C&L PLEASE grab that piece over at HuffPost with the Fox News graphic depicting the Lincoln-Douglas debate? They actually have a picture of Frederick Douglass (a true hero) with Lincoln. How inept can you possibly be. Seriously.
Keep in mind, banks are not in business to make you weathy, they are in business to make money. Likewise, insurance companies aren't in business to make you healthy or well, they too are in business to make money.
Limp-Dick Blimpaugh @ 15:
You're right, Limp. Unfortunately the majority of the public is too stupid to actually do research and ignore the spin. They trust the MSM corporate profiters for the (mis)information fed to them. Scary, indeed!
How is his plan going to offset the $12,000 cost for a family? (Mine is actually $17,000 because I have the worst employer coverage of all time)?
It jst disgusts me that they think it is okay for a persons very life quality be determined by your wealth.
McCain has no clue
Group health insurance was always cheaper than individual policies, that is why companies started offering them to begin with. The GOP knows that the same 5,000 dollars will buy about half the health insurance becuase a company can buy "in bulk". offering health insurance was always part of compensation and it was basically pay at a discount. Individuals cannot lobby on their own behalf for better rates and have little negotiating power. Corporations have better ability to negotiate for group rates.
What is worse, people will be required to pay high insurance premiums and be steered by insurers or employers through predatorial means. You cannot work a high physically demanding job and not be covered by a health policy. The GOP plan (or un-plan) means higher costs for insurance, no accountability or negotiating power, predatorial policies, and essentially your pay will be worth less because even though you get a tax break, you will be paying higher prices for insurance than a corporation would.
Screw the GOP. I am forty years old and have NEVER had consistent health insurance. I am paying seventy thousand in taxes this year, and I want some fucking insurance. If I can help pay for the Iraq debacle, then the hell with them.
Here is a man who has never had to pay one penny for health care telling the masses that a 5000 dollar tax break will solve their health care problems. This idiot has no clue how much health care for a family of three or four even costs. How anyone be them repug or dem could even think to vote for this idiot is beyond me.
The GOP should be commeneded for their sheer GENIOUS.
They hate the poor, minorities, all those who weren't born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple. These are the very same people who will DIE as health insurance gets more expensive to buy while at the same time offerring less and less coverage.
They're just gonna wait it out.
diamondmc @ 21:
Government funded health care has been just dandy for EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF McSAME'S LIFE, but the rest of us are just not good enough to receive the same coverage 'cause, you know, we're just not elite enough.
And, yet again, "THE MEDIA' LIES .. LIES..LIES ... 'moves to the middle' ...... the corporate media is simply a fucking corporate/criminal/ enterprise akin to something like the mafia ... they invent their evil 'media narratives' to shove down the throats of the typical stupid american over and over till it becomes 'reality' ...... in mass this media should be charged, tried, and convicted for purposeful, criminal, fraud committed against the american people ........
Let's be real: Barack and Hillary's plans aren't much better either. They're not what I would consider universal healthcare plans. Hillary had a good plan in the early 90s, but then she became a politician. I guess Barack doesn't want to be considered a socialist if he actually proposed a major CHANGE to our system, which is exactly what the republicans would do. Of course, the ignorant masses would buy their argument, ignoring the fact every other government program could be considered socialist as well.
pissed off patricia @ 17:
Thank you Pissed Off Patricia!!
It has been made abundantly clear on these pages (remember the teenage girl who died recently because the insurance company refused her a kidney or something?), that these corporations only care about their profit margins. They ALL need to be put out of business. They need us, we do NOT need them.
We need Medicare for everyone. Period. All care standardized. Every hospital standardized. A Manhattan project to train high quality doctors and nurses who want to make a decent living with decent hours serving the public honorably (I'm a nurse...I did it for thirty years and it has been a very rewarding career).
The only problem is that these insurance companies have Congress by the nuts/ovaries.
Which means we need normal, intelligent progressives to run against these criminals as Independents. You wonder who that is? Go look in the mirror. (Think Sheehan/Pelosi).
Think Pissed Off Patricia/ (who's your Congressperson POP?).
I moved to Long Island a week ago and I'm waiting for the papers to come now to file my candidacy.
JeffS @ 25:
Have you even read Obama's or Hillary's plan's for health care or have you been just been taking your cues from the talking heads on the msm?
Why can't the GOP be honest about this. They want to unwind every social benefit ever created. Employer subsidized healthcare, hell ALL employee benefits, end Social Security, end unemployment insurance, end Pell grants, public schools...
diamondmc @ 27:
Don't feed the trolls.
I'm getting very worried about this website. If you keep reporting stuff like this, you may not be invited to Gampy's next barbecue. And that would be tragic.
Liberal AND Proud @ 29:
Yes, I have read them. They're not universal healthcare plans. As long as the state isn't involved, it is still done for profit. If that makes me a "troll," then so be it.
And also let's remember this: as long as the Dems don't have 60 votes in the Senate, no Democratic plan is going through anyway.
McCain = Recession
JeffS @ 31:
If you have read them, then how can you say they are not much better them McCrazy's? I think you must have missed something.
You can't bother Nash McCade and her ilk with these messy little details, she's too worried about really important issues like flag pins.
You might want to read them again. Both clearly involve the State as the main administrator, with one option being the State insurance provided to Congress. The only time the State is not involved is if a person opts for private insurance; however this still has some State control through subsidies or tax breaks.
Let's also remember that this would not even be effective until after the next election, so the fact that they don't have the votes today would not apply depending on election results.
Capitalism and a healthy society are mutually exclusive.
mcstain's health care plan could be a promise to personally hand out bandaid's for your boo-boos and as long as the msm said "See? He's got a plan!" the sheeple will applaud. And then join their voices to the reslugs in saying that the dems don't know what they're talking about because that's what the television and print media will tell them to say and they're really good at repeating what they're told. Jeffy@25 is case in point.
Is McCrazy going to include congress in on this great plan of his? We could save some tax payer money by including congress and for that matter the president too.
lilorphant @ 20:
And part of the reason for that is that group health insurance plans are required to cover everyone in the group. If you get group coverage through your employer, the plan has to take you, warts and all. Under McCain's plan, there's no guarantee any plan would have to take you on, at least not at an amount you can afford.
We're all missing the best part of the McCain "plan". EVERYone will get a huge pay raise!!! Since employers have been subsidizing premiums (as much as an 80% subsidy on the 13,000/year premiums), employers will drop the subsidies because of the lack of a tax benefit. They'll turn that money over to the employees and we'll be RICH RICH RICH! And then we can use that money to buy more electronics, take out bigger mortgages, and still have no health care coverage. But now it will be our own fault because it's our own choice. (Nevermind that there might be bulk rate and group discounts on the premiums, that doctors in PPOs limit their charges in order to get large groups of employees to walk in. All of this will be gone w/ McCain's plan.) We'll be on our own, which is where the right wants us to be.
The problem, of course, is that people aren't very good at weighing risk. Future discount is a major issue, and future health problems are heavily discounted. Insurance really is one of those places where the market fails completely, where we need a heavy dose of paternalism and planning. But these terms drive the right crazy. It might be nice to come up with language that avoids the nanny state imagery, casts the whole thing as Rambo-style testosterone-laden selfish macho behavior. I can't even begin to think about a way to do this, but it might help.
(And can we picture Earl Scheib w/that gruff voice saying "I'll scan any body -- just $99.95! Or Crazy Eddie's going craaazy! He'll give you 9 doses of chemo for just.....)
The insurance debate in America ignores the most important issue. Nobody, but nobody, not even Michael Moore, has identified the basic problem that makes private insurance unworkable.
It's that the service covered by the insurance is not a functional market subject to cost control. Medical treatments and drugs are not developed through price competition, like computer chips, car parts, courier services or fast food meals. Medicine is a scientific pursuit, not an economic one. When a new cancer treatment is invented, it usually comes out of a university or non-profit research entity, funded by public dollars. New treatments generally add to the cost of medical care, they don't reduce it.
Yes, many drugs are developed privately by pharma companies (often using research data from universities and public research institutions), but new drugs very often add to the cost of medical care.
Compare this to the invention of a new computer chip, or a new, more fuel-efficient car engine. Such innovations are adopted by the market because they provide more utility to consumers (they do more work per dollar of cost), or they are cheaper to produce (and generate more profit per unit), or some combination of the two. That's capitalism, and it works.
Medical research, medical innovation, drives costs up. This is market failure. We accept this, because we want to live longer, and we don't want our kids dying of polio, smallpox and tetanus. These diseases used to be death sentences - now they are cured thanks to expensive medical research, and it costs money to immunize every child. It costs vast amounts to provide basic medical care, and more every year to bring new treatments and drugs into hospitals and doctors' offices.
We have to have these treatments, and insurers have to pay for them. Private insurers face built-in price inflation for the services they cover. To protect their profits, they have to police every claim and deny coverage wherever possible. This drives up overhead cost and increases health-care price inflation. It's a cycle we are all familiar with.
The only sensible way to minimize the cost of medical insurance is a single-payer system. Claims administration and overhead are minimized. Scarce dollars are spent on medical care, not bloated private insurance bureaucracies and dividends to shareholders. Every patient is in the same insurance pool, so there is no actuarial advantage or profit to be gained from denying coverage to any individual. Single-payer insurance providers have statutory power to negotiate with doctors, unions and drug companies, and thereby can contain costs better than smaller competing insurers in private systems.
The next time you hear somebody talk about "Socialized Medicine", throw Market Failure at them.
Too bad McSame could not be limited to his own plan with the caveat that he cannot use his wife's money to get his insurance. It might just wake him up.
@41, That's why the conservatives have the Chicago school thinking -- everything really does have a market price, and the real market failure is the lack of disciplined pricing. So there you are with your (or in my case, my) mom -- do you pay for the next round of chemo, the stroke treatment, the latest antibiotic, or do you let her die? For the genuine conservatives, your money or your life is the only rational strategy. If this person's life is worth it, you'll pay, if not you won't pay and the person will die.
The problem, according to this view, is sentiment. Just don't get too sentimental, or save enough money to pay all the bills. It's up to you, but WE won't subsidize YOUR sentiment.
A market can work in health care so long as we don't care about saving lives.
Alec Timmerman @ 19:
$17,000??????
THAT is insane.
Cripes, in our family of 4, my wife has suffered clotting issues, lupus and was recently diagnosed as diabetic. Health insurance isn't even a consideration in our family budget since we have universal healthcare -- and I don't pay anywhere near $17,000 in taxes a year ... Holey Moley ... you poor folks are getting scammed. I would have to guess your politico's are all in the back pockets of the health insurers -- what other reason could there be?
You can believe the horror stories of no doctors, months for specialists or whatever else your media peddles to you, but for a Canadian who has had to rely heavily on gov't funded healthcare I have no complaints nor does my wife. We've gotten the best care in a timely fashion.
Keep trying.
Cheers,
Marvin
Marvin El Canucki @ 45:
Marvin's right. The cost of health insurance in the US is insane.
In my province, families of 3 or more pay $108 monthly for insurance. There are no user fees, no co-pays, no deductibles, no exclusions based on 'pre-existing conditions'. You don't have to deal with insurance gate-keepers, because they don't exist. Your doctor treats you, then bills the government. It's all very simple and efficient.
No wonder there is a mortgage crisis in the US and the savings rate is zero. America has been impoverished by a vast health insurance scam.
If you're looking for Megan McCain's Blog, she's shackin' up with me for awhile...
;-}
Proud2bHumble Hus(in)sein @ 47:
No accounting for some people's taste, I guess.
woodguy @ 48:
Thanks!! :) I take great humble pride in my tastelessnesses. Also, fortunately, I have a severe cold, and can't taste anything anyway... Nice to see ya woody ;-}
Hittin’ the road, Jack,”and I ain’t comin’ back no more no more no more no more”…
“Last word, freak.” - Melvin Udall
out
;-}
The revolution will be televised.
WTF good is a $5000 TAX BREAK to people who don't make enough money to pay over $5000 in taxes (like me).
McCain is an IDIOT!
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